Finding Disney in a Perspective Change

The week of final exams. Nobody likes it. It’s stressful, it’s worrisome, and it’s overall just not pleasant to take test after test day after day. BUT, alas, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Finals week doesn’t last forever, and, as its name claims, its period is a maximum of five days.

And somehow, in the middle of all that studying and sheer panic, the student body grows closer together. Some of my most meaningful conversations and moments with friends have occurred over various finals weeks. Maybe it’s not the exams themselves that prompt this closeness as much as wanting to make the most of the time we have left together before everyone separates over the imminent school break. In any case, finals bring students closer together in a way few other things do. Everyone is frenzied about the same thing, which means everyone can encourage one another in the same way (often just being a friendly presence).

All this might be fine and dandy, you say. Good job for the hopeful spirit of today’s youths. But what the heck is it doing on a Disney blog? Well, with exams being so tiring and stressful, naturally there are needs for study breaks here and there. Certainly a dominant feeling during such a break is wanting to escape from everything. And what better escape is there than Walt Disney World? For about two hours in the middle of the night last week, two friends and I salivated over YouTube vlogs and ride-throughs all about Disney, and when we were finished, one of them remarked, “Dang, I want to go so bad.”

The other replied, “Yeah, me too,” and jokingly added, “What if we just packed up and went next week. Oh, that would be funny.”

Then it clicked. The statement, meant to be unrealistically absurd, didn’t seem so strange once spoken aloud. We looked at each other, and we were all thinking the same thing.

Let’s go.

So right now, less than a week after that conversation, I’m getting everything all set to leave for Walt Disney World tomorrow morning. I’m kind of waiting to wake up and it all be a dream, and be back in the study room of my dorm. But it’s really happening, and it made finals week a lot different than I anticipated.

The entire perspective of the whole week changed in an instant. This was no longer a loathsome, neverending week of tests that I had to trudge through. Instead, exams became the only thing standing between me and Walt Disney World. I buckled down and studied with the assurance that in the grand scheme of things, finals week wasn’t really that bad and what really mattered was the quality time I had to look forward to at my favorite place in the world with some of my favorite people in the world.

What propelled me was that perspective change. What made me want to move forward with everything I had, finishing strong, wasn’t the notion of a vacation to a theme park, but the idea of what Disney embodies so greatly: a place to laugh, play, and learn together with people who mean a lot to me. That’s the gift that Walt left for the world in his stories, characters, films, and parks, and on the eve of Saving Mr. Banks and just before the joyous holiday season, it’s just about the best gift we can all carry to each other.

(Images copyright Disney.)

Blake is a college student focusing on Film and Media Studies. He enjoys making his family of six watch the parade on Main Street and then sprint to Frontierland in time to see it again. You can follow Blake’s random Disney ramblings on Twitter at @olddirtyblake, or at BlakeOnline.com.